Yesterday was an exciting day behind the scenes at TSA – emails were flying back and forth between us. Emails that are written in CAPITAL LETTERS and have excessive usage of exclamation marks. We’re probably completely wrong on every count, but it’s the weekend, and we don’t care.
We have a theory and we’re going to tell you why we think you will never buy a PlayStation 4.
It all started when it was pretty much confirmed that some sort of streaming service was to arrive on PS3. This lead me to recall Nanea Reeves, chief product officer for Gaikai, saying – or at least this is how we read the comment – that there would not be a ‘next gen’ console from Sony or Microsoft.
At this point pieces of the puzzle began to slot in to place and a couple of us had the same idea at the same time.
[drop]We know Sony want to extend the life of the PS3. We are pretty certain that the PlayStation 4 will not be appearing until next year and Sony desperately need to make some money fast, but MCV were absolutely adamant that Sony were planning to show new hardware at E3.What if Sony show something new, something we had not considered before, something other than the PlayStation 4.
What if there is a PlayStation Streaming Console?
A cheap little box with a built in PlayStation Eye and Move controller that only streams services, basically a PlayStation version of Gaikai which we shall dub ‘PlayStation Lite’. Sony could sell it for £100 or less along with a subscription service which allows you to play any PlayStation game you like.
You’ll remember Microsoft recently issued a $99 console, with a subscription based model.
Current PlayStation 3 owners can get the new service as part of PlayStation Plus, albeit possibly as an extra tier in the pricing, which might go some way to explain a few comments from SCEE folk on Twitter of late – maybe if you’re already a Plus subscriber come E3 you get the streaming for no extra cost.
Sony make all their profit from PlayStation via the games, hardware takes years before it becomes profitable so by using Gaikai technology and cheap off the shelf parts Sony could be in profit immediately from the launch of the PS Lite.
What of the PlayStation 4? Well there have been so many rumours flying around we could guess that 2013 will see the launch of a top end PlayStation 4 console. If you like buying games as physical products then you can buy the console and happily feed Blu-ray XL discs into its drive.
[drop2]Now here’s the killer thought – and it’s one being discussed elsewhere too: if you have a PlayStation 3 or one of our speculative PlayStation Lite consoles you won’t need to buy a PlayStation 4. PS4 games will be available to you on your PS3 via streaming.Sony can make hardware (and price it accordingly – i.e. bloody expensive) to those who want it, everyone else can switch on their PlayStation 3 and skip the expense and hassle of upgrading. The bank of PS4s down at Sony HQ will power the games, and stream them to your PS3 just like Gaikai does.
Sony might even miss the PlayStation 4 hardware phase altogether, that seems to be what Nanea Reeves was suggesting back in January. Skipping the costly first half of its life, when they’re selling at a loss and allowing half their users to stream on cheap hardware would be a huge money-spinner for them early on in the new console’s life.
The more we have thought about our little theory, the more things have slotted in to place. Barely a day goes by without Sony announcing a game, hell they’ve announced the next God Of War, surely that would have been a tent pole E3 announcement? Why are Sony clearing all the games out of the way in advance of E3?
Also, what’s up the the ridiculous amount of PSN maintenance? It’s been going offline for a day at a time, they must be doing something pretty major behind the scenes, getting ready for streaming perhaps?
We could be wrong – and we probably are – but turning the PS3 (and not forgetting the PS Vita) into a streaming service for the PS4 makes a hell of a lot of business sense for Sony, even if it might not make sense to gamers.
Over to you dear readers, are we mad as a box of soapy frogs or could we – just maybe – be on to something?
JesseDeya
Interesting theory but I have zero interest in game streaming. Latency, data usage, inferior picture quality and the internet umbilical cord are all reasons I will never* embrace streamed games.
I’ve no idea if I’m alone here, after all I still buy all my music on CD. :)
*unless these issues are addressed.
Origami Killer
I have no interest in streaming as well – prefer hard copies. This post is irrelevant to me, as an idea like this would never stop me splashing the cash for a next gen console. Even if it did come to plus as well I wouldn’t use it. :P
Although I don’t buy that many CD’s any more I always keep to my DVD’s, not into this downloading business with them.
stage1
Absolutely agree, I think this will be a compliment service rather than basically a new console.
bunimomike
And there it is. Tried three games on Gaikai yesterday. Problems ranged from low resolution graphics. Artifacts from compression. Low sound quality. Lag (which was a killer in tense moments).
Keep in mind my connection is 38MBit down and 8MBit up. :-/
That would be the end of my Sony days for a while.
bmg_123
Comparably, my connection is 2mbit down (700kb), yet sometimes I get pretty playable results, although still imprecise and low resolution.
ico
I shall be a VERY sad bunny indeed when physical media does die out. The feeling of taking the wrapper off a new game and sniffing it’s newness, the crisp untouched instruction manual (for the few games that still provide them) and the selling it off on ebay for a tidy sum after you’ve completed it. Long live physical media!
damoxuk
No your definately not alone. Not interested in streaming tech with image quality worse than what I played 10 years ago on my PC.
Besides although I prefer hard copies I’m not averse to download games if they are smaller ones like PSN/live titles. As long as I can play the games locally from a hardware box then i’m happy. But lag in playing single player games is not something i’m into.*
* Unless it’s Diablo 3. :)
Nickboss1
I agree with the 7 people above me, not interested! I use my ONLIVE box as much as my Wii which is never. I hope for Sony’s sake your wrong TSA.
Taylor Made
Nice read, I like where you going with this but ok let’s say that is the case you can stream ps4 game on ps3, would that affect the graphics in anyway since the ps3 will be old tech & ps4 a beast. Don’t know if that makes sense. Would the graphics be on par with ps4 if streaming on ps3?
I personally quite love the idea of streaming, for example this is not the same but all my vita games have been downloaded of psn store & does it feel good to just jump to a next game without having to get up and pick up mk9 & change the disc. I’m down for streaming if virgin doesn’t buffer halfway through the game
JesseDeya
I do hate a buffering virgin.
Nickboss1
lol
Kevling
It’s the equivalent of On Live – you can use that to play the latest PC games on a netbook, or their micro console. The “only” effect on your visual quality would be you net connection.
Oh, and PSN :)
Kevling
Sounds interesting… Maybe the recent rumoured “Orbis” name for the PS4 is actually the name for this service? Also wasn’t Playstation Cloud registered years back and nothing came out of it?
Deathbrin
“maybe if you’re already a Plus subscriber come E3 you get the streaming for no extra cost” – That’s what’s been bugging me, i basically skipped this May, wonder if it may have any impact, still not on Plus but what if i resub for June?
cam the man
If Sony go down that route I don’t suppose it matters if you are a new or re-subscriber after a break as long as your a plus-er before E3.
cc_star
Sony do seem to have been rather forward with pre-announcing this year, even for them. So they obviously want the focus on something else.
Tie that in with PlayStation Store Content Manager Ross McGrath stating “By the way, if you don’t have a PS+ subscription, now is the time to get one. For real. Just get 3 months if you aren’t sure. Trust me.”
And we’re left with that ‘something big’ being for PS+ subscribers.
My money is on Gaikai full game trials being streamed to PS+. Gaikai doesn’t sell games, it doesn’t provide full purchases it merely works with publishers to provide trials embeddable on any website.
It’s not hard to imagine a client coming to PS+ area of the store, we know Sony like full game trials there’s been plenty on the store & it’s always a category in those mysterious surveys that fly around from time to time, but the downloading of 6, 8 or 15gigs just to play a 60min trial is pretty inconvenient, so Gaikai’s proposition of streaming trials coming to PS3 makes sense.
It would also act as a trial ahead of the supposed next gen console launch, it would get users used to streaming & it would get the infrastructure & sense of scalability needed sorted out, in time for a dedicated launch.
This would enable Sony to provide a console with the form factor of and Apple TV, all it would need is a CPU/GPU system on a chip powerful enough to decode HD video streams, hell something like Raspberry Pi for a mere $35 does that, maybe increase the form factor so you can add-in a HDD for downloadable titles.
That takes care of AAA gaming (where graphical fidelity could run far in excess of PS3) and indie stuff in one fell swoop… and what about people who prefer to buy their games on disc, well the PS3 will still exist.
If there is one, the PS4 itself is heavily rumoured to be based on off the shelf PC architecture, rather than custom built Cell processors & stuff, which means games designed to run on the supposed PS4 could run on Gaikai server-side tech.
I do wonder why Sony would want to be in Gaikai’s pocket for anything more than full game trials though, surely they’ll be happy for 3rd parties & their own titles to have trials distributed this way because the trial then provides the “buy now” message once the trial has expired, surely they wouldn’t want to licence or be beholdant to someone else’s business aims when they could go their own way (particularly when they’d be no need for a Sony console at all as Gaikai works in a web browser)
Deathbrin
Screw it i’m gonna get Plussed
Jakster123x
The article brings up some very interesting ideas but i think i’m more inclined to go with CC’s idea.
Of course, i’m all for both ideas anyway seeing as i’m already with Plus and have been for two years, as well as the fact that there is still always the option of buying the PS4 and retail games.
shields_t
Yeah, agreed, it would certainly be closer to Sony’s previous behaviour such as when they effectively put out the PSP Go to test the water regarding digital downloads on the move.
iiekka
well if this is true looks like console gaming is over for me until they fix the internet in this country. also good by game.
JBoo
I want to ‘see’ the new ‘PS4’ under my TV :P + i really DON’T want to rely on the internet to get my gaming-fix :-/ Hopefully SONY won’t want to push another disc format to tho because Blu-ray f**ked-up the PS3’s price at the start & a new disc format would do the same(maybe stick with Blu-ray or those XL 100GB Blu-rays or whatever they are called) LoL:D
uncleniccius
Multilayer blu ray wouldn’t screw it up too badly, but I do agree; no fancy disk format that costs more than my house. (it doesn’t really).
bap10
This is all set up nice for the big news of PS1 games coming to Gaikai. :)
Workshed
IF they’re planning a streaming service it would seem daft to “power it from a bank of consoles” when they could power it from a bank of servers which can be constantly upgraded and will not need legacy parts etc.
Personally I have no interest at all in streaming games at the moment, I’m stuck in my ways of owning a physical copy. I’ve no doubt that this kind of thing is the future but I think it’s too soon to be mainstream when the majority of people still buy the latest football game from a high street store for a vastly over priced sum. When you ant even get these people to buy games online how are you going to get them streaming games??
Workshed
Thinking about it further and replying to myself!
The way Gaikai and OnLive currently work is that each server is streaming several people’s games (they’re beefy servers) if you were streaming PS4 games from a PS4 you would need one PS4 in the server farm for every player, this is completely unsustainable. They could come up wih some specialist hardware but it would cost an utter fortune. So I think it’s vastly more likely they’ll announce something along the lines of streaming PS1/2 games…
gazzagb
Interesting theory, but I think it might be too soon. Perhaps if we saw Online or Gaikai taking off then maybe, but they’ve been so quiet I cant see it happening. It will be a big risk for Sony.